


I'd Know You Anywhere

by whopooh



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Miscommunication, Reunion, post 3x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9606932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whopooh/pseuds/whopooh
Summary: Jack has visitors.For February's trope challenge "Communication Chaos". I didn't really manage chaos, but at least some proper confusion.





	1. Chapter 1

There was something wrong with the room. 

It was the wrong colour. The top of the walls were caving in on him, or perhaps the bottom of the walls were marching away? He tried to identify where he was – reclined in a chair, but not one he recognised. There was a glass nearby that no longer held any liquid. Why had he woken up? Was there a small sound? A door opening, perhaps. He looked right, but the door seemed to have shifted. He looked left. There was a figure in the doorway, wasn’t there? Or was there? His eyes would not focus. 

A figure in the door. Of course he knew who he wanted it to be. Had she been gone six days, or was it six months already? He did remember her going, didn’t he? A plane with a propeller. He distinctly remembered the propeller, how it refused to stop spinning and not take her away. His brain was a mess, a swirling fog that refused to abate. He sat up and noticed he had some kind of blanket on, a blanket he had to put to the side as he stood up. The room moved and changed colour; now it was green with luxurious golden stencils. Had the chair just changed form? He looked down, and then to the door again. The figure was now decidedly female, and didn’t it have dark hair in a bob? 

”Phryne,” he tried to say, but only managed to make the first sound. 

Agitation seared through his veins. He stood, though not completely steadily. She was here! He knew it might be a dream, but he decided he wouldn’t care – better in a dream than never. He had meant to rush to her but his body wasn’t used to the upright position. After three steps he stumbled and fell to his knees, sliding forwards on the floor. The pyjama pants didn’t make much friction; he slid all the way and came to a stop in front of her. Did she arch an eyebrow? She should have, but he couldn’t make out the details enough to know. He was on his knees in front of her, just inches away, reclining on his feet and baring his throat to be able to better squint up at her and try to make out her face. It swam and shifted and refused to stay still. Only the eyes, resting piercingly in his, were constant. 

She was so close he could touch her, and it was a dream, so why not? He looked down and saw she was wearing her Cleopatra costume, white and gold and bare. He did the only reasonable thing – he stood up more straight on his knees, put his arms around her waist and buried his face in her stomach, forehead first; then with a whispered ”Miss Fish-ah” he brought his open mouth there to kiss her and with a flat tongue lick at her navel. The fragrance of her, the leanness of her body, her back beneath his hands! His mouth met not soft skin but rough fabric, she wasn’t wearing the Cleopatra dress but something with much more coverage. He sighed with disappointment into her clothes as he hugged her. Just for once, he could have touched her, actually reached her, but no! 

When he let go of her and again reclined on his heels, he noticed he was in shirtsleeves. Curiously, he was wearing his heart on his sleeve: it was big and soft, warm and bloody, and it kept on beating. This struck him as odd, but he had no choice but to accept the world as it was. He watched it, mesmerised, then looked back up at her, to see if she found it embarrassing that he would put his heart out like that. He seemed to have moisture in his eyes. He couldn’t read her look, perhaps there was a frown of concern. He grabbed the heart and pulled his hand back to himself, and his heart seemed to slot back into place. At least it was no longer there when he checked his sleeve again. 

He closed his eyes for a second. He couldn’t make sense of this. He might be crying. When he opened his eyes again he was less sure that it was Miss Fisher before him; he looked up into her face and she looked like ten different women from his life, or none. He felt a shiver of panic. The woman put her hand on his head, comforting, nestling for just a second in his hair. 

”Inspector”, she said, rather softly but also insistently, ”let’s get you back to bed.” 

He tried to answer ”it’s a chair,” but nothing came out. He slowly made it to his feet, swaying a little, pain piercing through his abdomen, finding himself being led back to where he had woken up. He wanted to ask her who she was, and why she was there. His mouth didn’t cooperate. Obediently he laid down again, though it was the last thing he wanted, especially in a white room like this. It reminded him of something he didn’t like. 

She sat down by his bedside and patted his hand. He didn’t so much fall asleep as slip back into unconsciousness.

 

***

 

Mac stayed at his side for a while, resting her hand over his. She felt sorry for him. She was also a little surprised. She knew Phryne and Jack had been dancing around a deepening relationship – she had more than once given them an occasional nudge herself – but she was unaware that it had become _that_ intimate. It shouldn’t surprise her, she supposed, but there had been no indication from her friend before she’d flown away, and her correspondence since had said nothing. She gave him one last look-over and closed the door behind her as she left. 

”You were right, Laura,” Mac said to the nurse who had alerted her of his deteriorating state. ”He appears to be hallucinating. He thought I was... someone else.”

Despite her professional concern, she couldn’t help finding it rather amusing. The way he had stared at his own arm, and at her as if she was a goddess. Was this what Phryne was subjected to on a regular basis? How did she endure it? When would she come home? And how involved were they?

Damn that blasted shortness of telegrams, that never conveyed anything of importance.

She carefully looked at the young nurse. ”What did he say to you?”

”Not much. He asked me for forgiveness, for abandoning me. And later he declared his love for me. He had such a defeated look, both times. It doesn’t make sense.”

It made a great deal of sense to Mac, knowing more about the man’s life than the nurse did, about a woman he had divorced and a woman he had fallen in love with. But it didn’t sound good, from a medical perspective. He was getting worse, not better as he should. And that look on his face, when he thought he was looking into Phryne’s face, was of utter longing and anguish; the fever had stripped away all his world-weariness and humour, and it was unsettling. 

Mac thought about her own last telegram, a week ago, telling Phryne about Jack’s injury. An injury he had received when he chased a criminal who proved to have a rusty knife on his person. She had written to Phryne in her own patent style: short, steady, and reassuring. Nothing about complications – well, to be fair, there hadn’t been any at the time. 

Now, it seemed it was time for a second telegram, a more urgent one. She wondered if it would reach Phryne. Mac wasn’t certain where Phryne was at the moment, just that she was on her way home; Mac would have to send it to her last known stop and hope for the best.

 

***

 

Two days later, the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher set her foot on Australian soil again. After almost seven months of absence it was a wonderful feeling. She was home! She hadn’t understood how much she’d come to see Melbourne as home until she had left it behind. Disembarking from the boat, she was elated by again sensing the familiar air of Melbourne, and all the buzzing energy on the docks. She was also, to be fair, a tiny bit disappointed. 

She had nourished a glimmer of hope that Jack Robinson might have detected how she would return, checking with the operators, so he could surprise her by waiting for her on the quay. She had written him a slightly obscure telegram two days before, an invitation and a promise, but a challenge as well. She had trusted he was up to the task. He would have been the mirror image of when she left – stoically standing there in his fedora and coat, a smile on his face, only this time getting bigger and bigger as she approached. She would have waved frantically, suitably dressed as she was in a very visible red coat. And when she made it to the firm ground he would sweep her off her feet, spin her around and kiss her with months of pent-up desire. Finally. 

Mac had written some days earlier that he had had a minor injury, but also assured her it was nothing to worry about. Phryne, trusting Mac completely, had not worried and carried on her travel plan. Even with a minor injury, it wouldn’t have been impossible for him to meet her. She had tried to add to her mental image of him also a small bandage, but where? On his arm? On his torso? That was the problem of communicating through telegram – never enough said about the details. She didn’t like that she couldn’t supply her image with the correct injury. It made her feel disconnected.

And then, as it turned out, he wasn’t there. 

It was of course absolutely fine anyway – she couldn’t really blame him for not poking around to determine exactly when she would arrive, could she? If it had been that important to her, she could have telegrammed an exact time. It was her own fault, getting her hopes up. She took a cab to Wardlow, where Mr Butler waited for her, immediately opening the door with his warm smile. She luxuriated in the feeling of her house starting to wake up from its slumber as soon as she entered the door. Give it a few days, and everything would be bustling and brimming with activity as usual.

After an indulgent bath and a change of clothes, Phryne headed back downstairs.

”I think I’ll stop by City South, and warn Jack that I’ve returned.”

”The Inspector's not there, Miss. Doctor Macmillan was by yesterday, to say he was still in hospital.”

That did seem a bit superfluous, didn’t it? Why would he still be in hospital if he had had a minor injury a week ago? It didn’t make sense.

”Did she say why?” she asked, suppressing the slightest shiver of worry. 

”I’m afraid not. Perhaps a telephone call would illuminate matters.”

”Excellent idea, Mr B,” Phryne said, already heading for the telephone.

Two minutes later and unable to get a hold of Mac, who was dealing with an emergency, Phryne was none the wiser. Should she go there immediately, or wait?

Phryne discarded her earlier image of Jack waiting for her on the quay, substituting it with a new one: with her inner eye she could see how he would sit there – he couldn’t be as ill as needing to lie down, right? – slightly pale but with a smile on his face as he saw her in the doorway, realising she was finally home. The smile would start as a tease in the corners of his mouth, just to grow and fully bloom as he took her in. 

And then? Would he rise, ever so slowly, and take three strides to her to embrace her? Or would she be the quicker one, and without further ado slip into his lap and kiss him? Drag her fingers through his hair and cradle his head, feeling his whole body against hers? She heard already in her mind the happily exasperated and slightly incredulous ”Phryne” that he would exclaim in his deep voice, and how something would light up in his eyes. Yes, she couldn’t wait to see him. It had to be tonight. 

She took the car, perfectly taken care of by Mr Butler while she was away, excited to hear it come to life under her hands. She parked gingerly – and almost lawfully – outside the hospital, and was helped to the right room by a kind nurse. She paused just before entering his room, anticipation and sudden dread flooding her. What if he wouldn’t be as happy to see her as she had assumed he would? What if his face didn’t light up at all? She quashed her nerves and took a step into the room.

There he was. Half reclined in a bed with several pillows under his head. He looked thin and more worn than she had imagined, and he had his eyes closed. She felt her heart constrict a little at his paleness. He looked so small when he laid down – so still and inactive, powerless. His injury couldn’t be as small as she had been led to believe. 

Phryne cleared her throat. He stirred a little, and opened his eyes. As soon as he had woken and taken her in, everything would go to plan, wouldn’t it? She saw him search the room and settle on her. He looked pleased to see her, but not as pleased as she had expected. Not in the way he ought to when they hadn’t seen each other for months and months. Phryne took two more steps into the room, but as he seemed neither surprised nor happy, she didn’t feel she could ambush him with an embrace. 

”Hello Inspector,” she said instead, softly.

He looked at her intently. Then he closed his eyes for a second and shook his head. 

”You again,” he said. ”Is it that bad?”

As a welcome home, it was rather underwhelming.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack lay in the hospital bed, the fever from the past days abating enough that he could puzzle over the events from two nights ago – or was it three? They blurred together in his memory. He had thought he had seen Phryne. He had tried to kiss Phryne’s stomach, which admittedly was a slightly odd choice. But it wasn’t her. He knew that now. It must have been one of the nurses or doctors. Considering those steady eyes he suspected it had been Mac, which mortified him. He had behaved like anything but a grown, respectable man, and in front of one of the women he respected most in Melbourne. 

His day had been rather calm, but as the evening came, the fever increased again. The room once more started to tilt and become indecisive about the colour on its walls. He lay there, warm and unsettled, not quite certain about reality, when he heard a noise at the door. Turning his head, he saw a figure. 

It was like a déjà vu, but this time he wouldn’t be fooled. He wouldn’t let his fantasy image – obviously procured by longing and loneliness and heart ache – deceive him yet again. No matter how much like Phryne she might look to him, he knew better now.

The figure cleared her throat and greeted him with his formal title. It looked uncannily like Phryne, and he closed his eyes and shook his head in the hopes of clarity. All it did was make his vision swim.

”You again,” he said, trying for humour but too tired to hit it off successfully. ”Is it that bad?”

The figure seemed to be at a loss for words. He continued:

”Come to torture me again?”

”Jack,” she exhaled, incredulous. 

He tried to smile and hoped it came off as friendly. He pushed the blanket to the side and offered his body up with a resigned gesture:

”Alright. Do what you must.”

He saw her flinch visibly. 

That made him certain. Mac must have been the one he had attacked the other night, and she wasn’t too pleased about it. 

”Doctor Macmillan. I am sorry about the other day. It must have been very uncomfortable.”

After a prolonged silence, his companion found her voice and asked: ”What must?” 

”Me trying to kiss you.”

The woman looked piercingly at him and didn’t seem to understand. Didn’t he manage to make any sense in his feverish state? 

”Kiss me?” she said.

He blushed and looked down her body, not saying anything.

”Don’t think about it, Inspector. No harm done,” she said – it seemed she had decided to try out being soothing, more so than he had ever seen Mac do before. She added, for good measure: ”Just don’t do it again.”

”It was... undignified. I have learned now to disbelieve my hallucinations.” He looked at her again, swallowing. ”Even when they are most convincing.” 

He felt a tear forming in his eye, which he managed to quell. He had no business crying in front of Mac, for the second time in only a few days, even if it mostly was the fever’s fault. She seemed to feel as awkward as he, judging by how she just stood there, watching him silently, not moving. He knew he must look a sight. 

Finally, she sat down beside him, patting his hand in a strong, professional manner, that turned surprisingly soft. He closed his eyes at the feeling, but quickly realised that with such an uncharacteristic softness, something must be very wrong.

”What is it, Mac?” he asked, immediately on his guard.

”It’s Phryne,” she said.

”What? What’s happened to her?” He turned slightly to try to get a better look at her. ”You have to tell me.”

”No,” she exhaled. 

Undoubtedly it was something bad, otherwise why would she hesitate so? She looked at him with solemn eyes. He saw that the bad news were on the tip of her tongue, but she bit them down. She lowered her eyes to their hands, his still and hers stroking it, and he heard that she fought to keep her voice calm.

”No. No. Nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. Everything is normal.” She didn’t sound particularly convincing. ”She’s just coming home. Soon.”

He looked at her. 

”Or she might never come back,” he whispered. ”There is something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

The woman opened her mouth to respond, but he had already closed his eyes and drifted away. She sat there for a while, then kissed his hand briefly before rising and walking away. 

 

***

 

Mac arrived home, late in the evening and tired to the bone, to find her fireplace sparkling and Miss Phryne Fisher resting in her sofa in the living room, with a picnic hamper and a selection of food and liquor in front of her. 

”You are a sight for sore eyes,” Mac said before hugging her friend fiercely. ”You have to stop making these disappearances to other continents, you know. How are the parents?”

”As one would guess. Let’s not talk about them. You, though, look exhausted.” Mac dignified that comment with one of her trademark eyerolls. ”Eat,” Phryne ordered. 

Not until Mac had had a good fill of food and wine did Phryne talk again.

”I went to see him. How bad is he?”

Mac looked her over, trying to read the level of her worry, and deciding to opt for kindness.

”He’ll live,” she stated. ”He had a nasty blow from a knife, and we obviously didn’t manage to clean the wound completely the first time around. Now, it’s only a matter of time until the infection should be gone, if we haven’t screwed up completely. He does look the worse for wear, though.”

”He didn’t even see me. He talked to me, but he thought I was you.”

”Really?” said Mac. ”That is curious.”

”He thinks I’m never coming back,” Phryne mused, looking into the fireplace with a slump to her shoulders. Those telegrams they had sent, ridiculously short, and that handful of letters that didn’t manage to convey anything of real importance. It seemed neither had managed to make him certain about what they were doing, or whether she would want to come back to him. But no, she couldn’t stay in such a sad state of mind, and visibly collected herself:

”He also apologised for kissing you. Mac, when did you start kissing men?”

Mac laughed in the face of ridiculous questions.

”When did you get so intimate with Jack Robinson?” she retaliated.

”I didn’t. We aren’t.” Mac smiled disbelievingly at that answer. ”Alright, not yet. I might have been meaning to change that.” Phryne doubled back: ”What on earth do you mean, intimate?”

”Let’s just say that he might have kissed me, but he very much thought he was kissing you. And it was all surprisingly… intimate. I’m not one to gossip about details, though.”

Mac knew Phryne couldn’t resist a bait like that.

”How is it gossip to tell me if he actually thought it was me?”

”I know you always say he is not as grey and ordinary as he seems, but a rather passionate man. I confess I haven’t seen much of it. But I believe you now,” she said, with a teasing smile.

”He must have made some display.” 

Phryne was joking, but Mac could see she was also annoyed, wishing she had been there to witness it.

”Come along in the morning,” Mac said. ”Maybe he’ll be more lucid then.”

Phryne left her so Mac would get at least a few hours’ sleep before her next full work day. Getting ready for bed, Mac couldn’t help trying to assess her friend, who usually was not one to beat about the bush, and her curious relationship to the Inspector. No wonder she hadn’t known what Phryne and Jack were to each other; they hardly seemed to know themselves.

 

***

 

When Phryne arrived at the hospital late next morning, Jack was fast asleep. 

She sat down by his bed to just look at him – how his eyelashes moved slightly as he slept, the rise of his chest under the blanket, the way the sun and his curls both lay against his forehead. He seemed to be less feverish than the night before. Watching him breathe made her again realise how much she had missed him. 

His face when resting was so innocent-looking and smooth, she had to reach out and touch it. His eyes slowly fluttered open, searching and coming to rest on her. 

”Phryne?” he said, in exactly the way she had imagined earlier, exasperated and slightly incredulous.

”I am not an apparition, Inspector. I’m home,” Phryne said.

He took some moments to look at her, shifting between her two eyes as if to make sure she was really there. Then he closed his eyes, just to crack one open again.

”Still here.” 

”It is entirely unfair,” he said with a voice rather rough from disuse, ”that when you finally come home, Miss Fisher, you find me in such a ridiculously weakened state I stand no chance against you.” 

”As if you ever did,” Phryne smiled. This was her Jack, bantering as soon as he laid his eyes on her. He would be alright. 

She took the cue from the universe and bent down, finally able to finish what they had started in an airfield seven months before. His lips were soft and his moan of surprise was delightful. He tasted of sleep and hospital, but there was no way she was going to be deterred by that when she finally had her lips on him. She kissed him thoroughly, insistently, sensing nothing but lips and tongues and warmth and _Jack_. After a slight hesitation his hand came up to cradle her head, crushing her more closely to him as if he couldn’t bear any distance between them. Her hand trailed from his cheek down over his chest until she reached the area where he was hurt and he flinched. 

She broke off and looked at him. Her eyes were still a little dazed from the kiss, but her eyebrow soon arched rather sternly and she huffed.

”How is it I can travel half across the world in a ridiculously small plane with an irate father, have more than one emergency landing that I swore I would never tell you about, endure the cold of the English winter and the British aristocracy, cross all the seas to come back, and you are the one that ends up in hospital?”

He smiled and caressed her cheek, pulling her back so he could kiss her again.

”I love you too, Miss Fisher.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Fire_Sign for suggesting improvements and being such a generous reader!
> 
> The title is from a Frank Sinatra song. (http://www.metrolyrics.com/id-know-you-anywhere-lyrics-frank-sinatra.html)


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